Animanga in the News: 2/11 - 2/17

Hey there everyone! It's time for this week's animanga news again :D This week we have the end of mangastream translated scans, chinese government to license japanese anime, mirai nikki live-action, pokemon 15th movie news and many more~ To find out more, simply read on ^^

MangaStream, a website that hosts unauthorized, translated scans of manga, announced on Saturday that it is no longer hosting seven titles licensed by Viz Media in North America, in response to what it calls "aggressive and escalating" legal threats from the publisher.

MangaStream said that it will no longer host Naruto, Bleach, One Piece, Hunter X Hunter, Katekyo Hitman Reborn!, Claymore, and D.Gray-man. All seven titles have been or were once serialized in Shueisha's Weekly Shonen Jump magazine in Japan. The site's statement read: "The aggressive and escalating nature of their threats have forced our hand into removing the content. MangaStream will no longer be posting full scanlations for any of the aforementioned series, we will instead focus our efforts onto the series we do that are not licensed by Viz Media."

The site noted, however, that it will still post manga in its directory listing. That directory continues to list spinoff series from franchises that Viz has published in North America, such as Shaman King and Dragon Ball. On Wednesday, the website began posting English text summaries of the latest Japanese chapters of One Piece, Naruto, Bleach, Hunter X Hunter, and Reborn.

Viz launched its weekly digital anthology Weekly Shonen Jump Alpha on January 30. Viz provided ANN with the following comment on Thursday:

Quote:

Our goal at Weekly Shonen Jump Alpha is to provide the best experience possible for keeping up with the most current chapters of your favorite manga series. This unprecedented effort is an unique collaboration with the publisher of the original Japanese Weekly Shonen Jump magazine, Shueisha. Furthermore, this experience will be improved and shaped by the readership of Weekly Shonen Jump Alpha. Without qualification, we treasure the support and feedback of our fans. It is only with their participation that this special collaboration between the creators, the Japanese and North American publishers, and the readership can move into the future. But our journey has just begun. We have a long way to go. By making this journey together, there is no limit to what we can do.At Viz Media, we've taken bold measures to bring the best manga titles direct from Japan as quickly as possible. We have laid out the foundation for the digital Viz Manga platform, which can be accessed through any web browser at VIZManga.com and through the Apple iOS app store. From these beginnings, we can already feel the worlds of fans and creators coming closer together.

One thing has not changed. By reading legal, quality translations, manga fans support the manga creators directly. It is this love and support of manga fans for manga creators that will allow manga-ka to continue crafting great stories for many years to come. And it is with this support that we, the publisher, can improve and deliver more of what fans love to read.

American telecommunications company Verizon sent out an email message to subscribers of its FiOS television service this week to inform subscribers that it will drop the FUNimation Channel from the service "on, or after March 15." The message cited "very low viewership" as the reason for the drop.

The channel remains available on AT&T U-Verse, Xfinity, Charter, and several other smaller cable operators.

We appreciate the outpouring of support from the FUNimation Channel nation regarding this sudden notice. After learning of Verizon FiOS TV's decision, we are discussing our options to maintain FUNimation Channel's presence on their platform. We promise to keep our legion of fans posted through our website and social media pages and encourage our fans to call Verizon FiOS TV to voice their opinion.

Sentai Filmworks Adds Fate/Stay night: Unlimited Blade Works FilmFilm to get digital, DVD, Blu-ray Disc release later this year

Sentai Filmworks announced on Thursday that it licensed the Fate/stay night: Unlimited Blade Works anime film. The company will release the film digitally and on DVD and Blu-ray Disc later this year. The all-new animated production covered the Unlimited Blade Works storyline from Type-Moon's game franchise. The film opened in Japan in January 2010, and the film's Blu-ray Disc release in Japan in October of that year sold 44,000 copies in its first week.

Funimation released a Fate/stay night anime series box as one of its first anime DVDs from its distribution deal with Geneon Entertainment. Tokyopop published 11 volumes of Datto Nishiwaki's manga version in North America before its North American branch shut down last May.

Chinese Government to Directly License Japanese AnimeChina launching site to stream anime to deal with unauthorized releases

The 47News website reported on Friday that the Chinese government has decided to directly license the rights to broadcast Japanese anime programs and films, and then it will stream them on a special website that it will launch. The reason for the initiative is to deal with the rise of unauthorized copies and pirated releases.

47News notes that China has received international criticism for being behind on intellectual property protection.Futabasha, a japanese publisher, sued three Chinese companies this week for allegedly using the name and likeness of the title kindergartener in Yoshito Usui's Crayon Shin-chan manga.

Futabasha, the original Japanese publisher of the late Yoshito Usui's Crayon Shin-chan manga, has filed a lawsuit against three Chinese companies with the Shanghai No.1 Intermediate People's Court. According to the court, the company alleges that the companies have been illegally using the name and likeness of the manga's title kindergartener Shin-chan, and seeks damages from each company of more than 1.6 million yuan (US$254,031).

Futabasha states that it had discovered Shanghai Enjia Economic and Trade Co. had been selling Shin-chan products bearing the character's likeness and Chinese name in 2004. However, Shanghai Enjia states that it had purchased rights to the name and images from two other companies, Guangzhou Chenyi Optical Co and Jiangsu Province-based Shifu Economic Development Co. All three companies are named in the suit, but only Shanghai Enjia appeared in court at a February 15 hearing.

Futabasha had previously lost a Chinese court case in 2009, wherein the company tried to repeal a trademark granted for the character with a Chinese company, who had been selling rights to the name and likeness since 1996. The Chinese court ruled against the publisher, stating that the five-year limit for disputing a trademark had passed.

Sakae Esuno's Future Diary (Mirai Nikki) manga is inspiring Mirai Nikki -Another:World-, a live-action television series adaptation which will premiere on Fuji TV this April. 22-year-old actor Masaki Okada (Hana-Kimi, BokuKimi, Otomen, Mahō Tsukai ni Taisetsu na Koto) stars in the project. Okada will play a character named Arata Hoshino, an original character who did not appear in Esuno's manga.

The new live-action series will be the first one to run in Fuji TV's 11:00 p.m. timeslot on Saturdays in two years. Previous live-action series that ran in this slot include Life (with a series high rating of 17.4%) and SP. Okada earned his first starring role in another live-action Saturday series on Fuji TV three years ago, Otomen. He is also starring in the live-action film adaptation of the Space Bros. (Uchū Kyōdai) manga this May.

The manga has sold 4 million copies and inspired both a video anime project and a television anime series which premiered in October. Tokyopop published 10 of the 12 manga volumes before shutting down its North American publishing operations last May. Funimation and the video-streaming service Niconico are streaming the television anime series as it airs in Japan.

The Winter issue of Shueisha's Jump SQ.19 magazine is announcing on Saturday that the magazine will switch from a quarterly schedule to every other month. The first issue on the new schedule will ship on April 19. The magazine is a spinoff of Jump Square magazine. It launched last May with the return of Yasuhiro Nightow's Kekkai Sensen, as well as Kentaro Yabuki's adaptation of Tomohiro Matsu and Peco's Mayoi Neko Overrun! light novel series.

The international radio broadcast service The Voice of Russia posted an article this week that discusses a possible link between anime and a recent wave of suicides among young people in Russia. In the ten days prior to the original article's posting, six junior high school students committed suicide in Russia. The article noted that most of them had a strong interest in Japanese anime while they came from good families and received good grades.

Olga Mahovskaya, a youth psychology specialist, commented in the article that "anime by itself cannot be the cause of teenage suicides."

However, she asserted that because anime blurs the line between the real world and "virtual culture" and "romanticizes death," anime viewing could contribute to teenagers' decisions to end their lives.

Japanese anime and manga fans have responded to the article on forums and blog sites. One person replied that

"for young children, I think Japanese late-night anime is no good. But really, something like Dragon Ball or One Piece might be OK. Naruto might be questionable." Mahovskaya said that stories of girls joining together to commit suicide (as a mark of their never-ending friendship) are prevalent in anime"

This prompted a fan to write, "I've never seen an anime like that!" Another reader reacted, "I don't understand, I don't think there are anime that endorse suicide."

The article reported that 1,500 deaths result from 4,000 teenage suicide attempts in Russia every year. Japan's relatively high rate of youth suicides spurred the Japanese government to begin publishing an annual "Suicide Counter-Measure White Paper" in 2007.

Entertaintment trade news source Variety reported on February 2 that director Jaume Collet-Serra has signed on to direct Quean, a pilot for an American CBS television series written by Ilene Chaiken and Joel Silver. The pilot is said to be about a female hacker who assists the police in solving crimes. Collet-Serra is the Catalonian director currently attached to direct the live-action Akira film at Warner Brothers with producer Leonardo DiCaprio.

In the United States, television pilots are one-episode tests that are produced for television networks, and are used to decide what shows will eventually be acquired for broadcast. Television directors are typically only brought in for a single episode at a time, with their total involvement covering a number of weeks.

Separately, New York magazine's Vulture blog reported last Friday that the director is also attached to direct Harker, a re-imagining of Bram Stoker's Dracula stories. The film will be produced by DiCaprio, and Warner Brothers is currently talking to various potential stars, including Russell Crowe. Vulture reported that Akira in its current state was considered by Warner Brothers to be too costly, and that the studios' current plan is to have Collet-Serra direct Harker first, and then return to the live-action Akira project with a lower budget.

The North America anime distributor Discotek Media revealed on Wednesday that it will release the anime Space Adventure Cobra - The Movie on DVD this August. The DVD will include the Japanese language soundtrack with English subtitles and the English language soundtrack.

The official website of the Pokémon anime films revealed on Wednesday that the upcoming 15th Anniversary film's full title will be Gekijōban Pocket Monster Best Wishes! Kyurem Vs Seikenshi Kerudio (Pokémon: Black & White the Movie - Kyurem Vs. the Sacred Sword Master Keldeo). With the update, the website confirmed the identity of the new legendary Pokémon, Keldeo. The film will be released in Japanese theaters on July 14.

The next feature film (and the accompanying Pikachu the Movie short) will mark the 15th anniversary of the anime films. The original games celebrated their 15th anniversary in February 2011.

A teaser trailer aired on TV Tokyo in December, and it confirmed that Kunihiko Yuyama is returning for the next film after directing most of the previous films and The Slayers films.

The Rainbow Project, a task force made up of the Social Responsibilities Round Table and the Gay, Lesbian, Transgender and Queer Round Table of the American Library Association released its 2012 Rainbow List last month. The list included Takako Shimura's Wandering Son volume 1 from Fantagraphics Books.

The Rainbow Project presents a list each year of "quality books with significant and authentic GLBTQ content, which are recommended for people from birth through eighteen years of age." Wandering Son is the first manga to make the list. The Rainbow Project released its first list in 2008.

Wandering Son's first volume also made the American Library Association's Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA) division's list of the top 10 graphic novels for teens in 2012.

Fantagraphics Books released the second volume of Wandering Son in December.

TAF had previously announced the Tokyo Anime Awards' 8th Annual Awards of Merit in December. The awards ceremony will take place during the Tokyo International Anime Fair, which runs from March 22 to March 25 at the Tokyo Big Sight event center.

The screen adaptation of Naoyuki Ochiai's Crime and Punishment: A Falsified Romance manga will be a live-action television series which will premiere on April 29.

Kengo Kōra (Ohisama, Gokusen 2) will star as the college dropout Miroku Tachi, while Asami Mizukawa (Nodame Cantabile, Dark Water) will play Echika Ameya. Masatô Ibu (Maison Ikkoku - Apartment Fantasy, Nodame Cantabile) will play a public prosecutor. Tetsushi Tanaka (Mahō Tsukai ni Taisetsu na Koto) will also act in the series. Ai Hashimoto will play the leader of a paid dating group named Hikari Baba, and Shota Sumetani will play a money smuggler named Shōta Someya.

In Fyodor Dostoyevsky's original Crime and Punishment novel classic, a poor student struggles with his decision to kill a pawnbroker and the resulting consequences, while the rest of society reveal themselves in how they react to the crime. Ochiai re-imagines the psychological drama by putting a young hikikomori (shut-in introvert) man and an enkō (paid dating partner) girl at the center of the crime in modern-day Japan. A college dropout named Miroku meets a high school girl named Risa and devises a terrible plan.

Kelly/Niimura's I Kill Giants Wins 5th Int'l Manga AwardChina's When You Standing Your Tiptoes, Taiwan's Make a wish! Da Xi, Thailand's The Man Who Follow His Own Voice are runners-up

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan announced the winner and runners-up of its Fifth International Manga Awards on Tuesday. The American writer Joe Kelly and Spanish cartoonist JM Ken Niimura won the top award for the graphic novel I Kill Giants, which was published in the United States in 2008.

The story centers on a socially awkward girl named Barbara who believes that giants exist. One day, Barbara gets into a fight with the bully Tyler and accidentally hits her good friend Sophia. While Barbara worries about losing her friend, she prepares herself to ward of the coming giant attack. Kelly has worked on the American cartoons Ben 10 and Generator Rex as well as numerous comic books, while Niimura's manga have been translated into six languages.

China's Pan Li-Ping and Zu Le-ya (When You Standing Your Tiptoes), Taiwan's Cory (Make a wish! Da Xi), and Thailand's Tanis Werasakwong (The Man Who Follow His Own Voice) won awards of excellence or Silver Awards.

International Manga Award

Joe Kelly, JM Ken NiimuraI Kill Giants

Awards of Excellence

Pan Li-Ping, Zu Le-yaWhen You Standing Your Tiptoes

CoryMake a wish! Da Xi

Tanis WerasakwongThe Man Who Follow His Own Voice

An awards ceremony will take place in Tokyo on Friday.

This year's judges were Machiko Satonaka (Yumeiro Kajitsu), Leiji Matsumoto (Space Battleship Yamato), Seika Nakayama (Alfheim no Kishi), Kouichi Yuri (former Afternoon editor-in-chief), and Hiroyuki Yoshidome (former Manga Action editor). A total of 145 entries were submitted from 30 countries — less than the 189 entries which were submitted from 39 countries last year. 303 entries which were submitted from 55 countries the third year, 368 entries from 46 countries were submitted during the second year, and 222 entries from 22 countries were submitted during the first year of the awards.

Chinese creator Xiao Bai won the top award in the 2010 contest with Si loin et si proche ("So Far, Yet So Close"). Thai creator Jakraphan Huaypetch (a.k.a. Ton Huaypetch) won the Gold Award in 2009 for the basketball story Super Dunker. Hong Kong's Lau Wan Kit won 2008's top award for Feel 100%. Another Hong Kong artist, 43-year-old Lee Chi Ching, won the first International Manga Award in 2007 for his Sun Zi's Tactics comic series. Former Japanese Foreign Minister Tarō Asō, a self-professed manga fan, announced the creation of the awards in May of 2007.

The official Twitter account for the Tiger & Bunny anime series confirmed on Monday that the Tiger & Bunny King of Works production material archive has been delayed from March 30 to June 29 to improve the contents and product quality. However, the previously announced three-volume set has been expanded to four volumes.

The book set will now have about 800 pages instead of 400, and it will now come with a bonus illustration sheet. The previously revealed bonus calendar will now run from September 2012 to August 2013. The pre-order deadline has been extended to April 25, but the price remains unchanged.

In addition to designs for every character, the book set will have color production images, all the episode scripts, and selected animation pencil drawings.

The four-member musical group GReeeeN completed an animated music video for its latest song, "Misenai Namida wa, Kitto Itsuka" (Hidden Tears, Surely Someday…) The director for the group's first animated video, Hisashi Kikuchi, drafted the original story for the piece. Another contributor, Saburo Hashimoto, had previously directed episodes of various anime such as Golgo 13, as well as episodes of The Little Mermaid and Gargoyles television series at Walt Disney Animation Japan.

The members of the band said that the title and the song itself represents "tears that are concealed to try to hide one's weakness, by a person so dignified and noble that she will save someone. Kikuchi made a story for the video based on the ideas that we came up with."

Kikuchi said that his desire to depict song's powerful impression of "the untapped potential of humanity" was the springboard for his story concept for the video. The video follows a solitary girl as she struggles to change a world controlled by evil.

"Misenai Namida wa, Kitto Itsuka" will be the theme song for the live-action television series Strawberry Night starring Yūko Takeuchi. The limited edition of the single and music video will include a picture book when it ships on February 19. Last year, GReeeeN contributed the theme "Ai Uta" ("Love Song") for another commercial that Rintaro (Galaxy Express 999, Metropolis) directed at the anime Studio MADHOUSE for Meiji's fruit juice gummi candies.